“Jan. 06--Firefighters were dispatched early Saturday morning to a narrow street in North Philadelphia, where flames danced menacingly in the front windows of an old two-story rowhouse.

Lt. Matthew LeTourneau was among the members of Engine 45/Platoon A, located on 26th Street near York, who scrambled when the call came in at 8:51 a.m. Three minutes later, they arrived at the scene of the blaze: 2240 Colorado St., near 17th Street and Susquehanna Avenue.The conditions were the kind that firefighters often dread. The region was still in the grips of a massive cold front that had pushed temperatures down to record lows; frigid weather always threatened to make their job all the more difficult. Older houses posed any number of unseen structural risks, and this one was already filled with black smoke.

LeTourneau, who was considered a "shining example" by his peers, ventured inside the property as he helped battle the blaze. The steps he took would prove to be his last.An "interior structural collapse" left LeTourneau pinned in rubble and debris, Fire Commissioner Adam Thiel later explained. It took firefighters and paramedics about 30 minutes to free LeTourneau, who was rushed to Temple University Hospital.

"At 11:07 this morning, he was declared dead," Thiel said later in the afternoon, as he stood outside of the hospital, still dressed in his brown fire gear. "And we are without words."While trapped in the house, LeTourneau "was never alone," Thiel said. "The rescue effort started almost immediately."

He called LeTourneau, 42, one of the department's "heroes."

A grim-faced Mayor Kenney, whose father was a firefighter, said the city will "be there for [LeTourneau's] family forever."

Two other firefighters also suffered injuries and were expected to be released from the hospital. The fire also claimed the life of a man who lived inside the property on Colorado Street. Authorities had not yet released his name.

Residents said they didn't know the man's full name, but some called him Andre and believed he was in his 50s and lived alone.

Sherel Smith said she passed by the man, who lived next door to her, about 2 a.m. Saturday. He was clutching a box that contained a heater he had just bought, and he mentioned that he didn't have any heat in his house amid the frigid cold."He said he was going to turn on his heater and stay in the house," said Smith, 30.Hours later on Saturday morning, Smith and her boyfriend, Monttwain Silas, 33, were awakened by the sounds of loud banging on their front door. Smith then realized there was black smoke in her house, and the house next door was engulfed in orange flames.The next time she saw her neighbor, his body was being carried out of his house on a stretcher by first responders.

Smith and her boyfriend called him "Drew." She credited a neighbor across the street, Melvin Carter, 53, for saving her and Silas by pounding on their door.

"Thank God he banged on our door for that long, because we would have died from smoke inhalation," Smith said late Saturday afternoon. The fire ruined her house, so she and her boyfriend were moved into another rowhouse owned by her landlord on Colorado Street.”